In this commentary, you appear to be engaging in sophistry. In other words, you appear to be decisively imparting falsehoods. First you fabricate a definition of the “American elite” comprised exclusively of progressives. Then you fabricate a reality where the mainstream press disseminates lies, where college campuses lack diversity and muzzle free speech and where progressives have fallen down in addressing the problems of the inner cities. Finally you fabricate an argument that the so-called elite have “titles, brands and buzz” but no “demonstrable knowledge or proven character”. This is a perfect example of deflection and psychological projection. You have, wittingly or not, described your populist hero Donald Trump, a man with “brands and buzz”, who disseminates lies, impugns minorities, muzzles the press, cares little about the inner cities and clearly lacks knowledge or character.

– Allan Cooper

Victor Davis Hanson’s Reply:

Dear Angry Reader Allan Cooper

One of the themes of the Angry Reader column is the predictable use by Leftists such as yourself of personal invective (“sophistry”, “falsehoods”, “fabricate”, etc.) along with intellectual laziness.

Take your allegation that I wrote that elites are “comprised exclusively of progressives”.

How does that assertion square with my allusion in the column on elites to “many in the Republican Party as well” or to the “Bush or Clinton families”. Are the Bushes and the Republican Party progressives?

So it is hard to take you seriously when the first allegation you make is demonstrably false.

And it sadly it is all downhill from there:

1) Are you arguing for intellectual diversity on campus? I think the recent Middlebury and Berkeley violence highlights my suggestion that there is little intellectual tolerance on campus.

2) Are you suggesting that the media is not progressive? JournoList, Wikileaks, and the epidemic of fake news from Rathergate and Brian Williams to the MLK bust allegation or Trump’s supposed romps in a Moscow hotel room substantiate the unreliability of the press, which by all polls and its own admission is overwhelming liberal.

3) You doubt the nature of life in the inner city or its governance? The inner cities are in crisis; most have had Democratic mayors and councils for the last thirty years and more; again are you contending that fact?

Donald Trump is not “my populist hero”; can you find any indication that I wrote that?

More to the point: what Trump says and what he actually does are two different things. I will find him guilty of “muzzling the press” when his Justice Department hounds journalists of the Associated Press or taps the communications of a reporter in the fashion of Obama’s treatment of James Rosen, or expands the reach of the NSA and the dissemination of its intelligence or depends on fawning press coverage to advance his agenda in the fashion of the “god”, “smartest president ever” and leg-tingling Barack Obama.

There are various ways of defining knowledge and character.

Trump is, of course, a flawed individual like many of us; but his failings are transparent, quite unlike those of Barack Obama, to take one example (Hillary Clinton is another).

With Trump, what you see is what you get. With Obama and his subordinates we were given constant utopian platitudes about hope and change, but experienced quite different dangerous deeds: expansions of NSA electronic surveillance, lying under oath by Eric Holder and James Clapper, the warping of the IRS, scandals in the VA, GSA, Secret Service, EPA, etc., nullifications of federal law by executive order non-enforcement, the jailing of a video maker on the false narrative of culpability for Benghazi (about which lies were promulgated by Susan Rice), the “echo chamber” manipulation of the “know nothing” press, assassinations abroad of US citizens, bombing Libya without congressional consent, the likely illegal monitoring and leaking of communications of the Trump campaign (as reported by the NY Times, Washington Post, and BBC), constant mellifluous untruth (you can keep your doctor and health plan, the president will not by fiat grant amnesties, the mythologies of the Cairo Speech), and often bizarre references to foreign leaders (from the open mic promise to be more flexible with Putin but only after the election to the gratuitous insults of Netanyahu [“coward”, “chickenshit”]). I learned in farming early on that the loud and uncouth are easier to deal with than the glib and shifty-eyed; the former may assault you senses, but the latter your person and livelihood.

So I think you need to redefine the boundaries of wisdom; they are not just calibrated by “57 states”- and “corps-men”-like Columbia and Harvard degrees.

Surviving the Manhattan real estate cauldron may take more savvy and cunning than the sorts of identity-politics navigation in colleges and liberal circles as outlined in Dreams From My Father. I have spent most of my adult life in two pursuits: academia, often in the circle of those with impressive graduate degrees, and farming with those sometimes without high school diplomas.

I saw little difference among the two groups in terms of ethics, saw the less articulate often more direct and transparent, and could never quite tell which group was the smarter, although what I heard in the faculty lounge and academic senate was a few rings down on the intelligence scale from what I heard and saw when talking to well drillers, pump installers, and tractor mechanics.

The Duplicity of the “Russian Collusion” is the Collusion Between Obama, Democrat Senators, and the Russians

By Capt Joseph R. John, March 7, 2017: Op Ed # 340

Since the 1920s Russian Communists have tried to destabilize US elections, as they are currently trying to destabilize elections in France. Russian Communists have been very successful in supporting candidates for Congress in the US who want to bring down the US Constitutional form of government. Over the last 100 years, Russia promoted the philosophies of candidates in the US that resulted in the election of 70 Democratic members of Congress who are Socialists, Leftists, Communists, Progressives, and Muslims (you can easily obtain their names by making a request of Google for the “Socialists, Communists, and Progressives in Congress”).

The goal for all elections in the US should be to prevent the Russians, China, groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, and any other foreign power from influencing US Congressional and Presidential elections. Following the defeat of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party and the left of center liberal media establishment have been promoting Russian conspiracy theories as the reason why Hillary lost the election. The assertion is that the Russia worked with the Trump Presidential Campaign to hack the Democratic National Committee, to interfere with, and deny Hillary what she felt was her right to be elected to the presidency.

The Russian narrative of collusion is fake news propped up by the left of center liberal media establishment, in order to delegitimize President Trump. After 4 months of investigation, there is absolutely no evidence of collusion, or one source that the press can identify who can prove collusion. The Director of National Intelligence in the Obama administration, James R. Clapper, stated that there has been no evidence that Russia colluded with anyone in the Trump Presidential Campaign Organization, that there is no proof that Russia affected the votes in any state, or that Russia’s actions actually caused Hillary Clinton to lose the election.

Many leftist and progressive organizations have been working closely with Obama’s Organization For America (OFA), with Soros, Bill Ayers, and Valerie Jarret (who moved into Obama’s rented house in Washington) to initiate a silent coup d’état, to oust President Trump from office. Sources told the Daily Mail that Obama hates Trump and plans to bring down the Trump administration. Obama is employing 32,000 Alinsky trained radicals, operating out of 250 offices across the nation, who are being paid by Soros to sabotage the Trump administration.

Obama puts on a charming face for the press, but his hate for President Trump is evil. OFA is leading a full-fledged effort to deny President Trump control of the US Government, with the help of thousands of Obama’s political appointees, still in positions of leadership in the Intelligence Agencies and other departments of US Government. For the last 4 months, Obama has showed his true colors, in his concerted effort to employ OFA and the left of center liberal media establishment to allege that Russia colluded with the Trump Campaign to defeat Hillary and to support violent demonstrations in the streets.

The slow approval of members of President Trumps Cabinet by Democrats in the Senate, and the reluctance to approve over 500 sub-cabinet appointees requiring Senate approval. The slowdown has been orchestrated to allow the Obama political appointees to remain in their appointed positions throughout the government. The goal is to undermine the Trump administration and provide leak of damaging information to the press. All Obama appointees should be required to submit their resignation, as is custom following a presidential election, when a new administration gains power.

In June 2016, it was reported that Obama administration surrogates approached the FISA Court to surveille Donald Trump; the application was rejected by a Federal Judge. In October 2016, the Obama administration Justice Department submitted a second request to a FISA Court to surveil two Russian Banks that was approved. They were apparently successful with that wiretap, because in November the New York Times reported that it was learned “thru a wiretap” that General Flynn had spoken to Russian representatives in the course of communicating with 45 other governments (incidentally that was his job; Obama’s representatives were negotiating with Iran in meetings in the country of Oman long before Obama was inaugurated). Someone in Justice or in one the intelligence agencies leaked to the New York Times, that a wiretap had revealed that General Flynn had communicated with a representative of the Russian government.

On inauguration day, the New York Times reported in a front page story, that The White House received information from a wiretap, that there was no conclusive evidence of any wrong doing by the Trump Campaign with Russia. That was the second violation of federal law by leakers to the New York Times: those leakers should be prosecuted for violating the Espionage Act.

Yet the New York Times keeps reporting that President Donald Trump has given no proof of a wiretap of the Trump campaign; they refused to inform their readers that revealing details of a FISA wiretap is against federal law and details can’t be revealed to the general public. Certain provision s of the Espionage Act and Federal Law EO 1333, Section 23c allows the President of the United States to wiretap phones without a FISA Warrant (that is called collecting incidental intelligence); that may have been the way that Obama’s Justice Department wire tapped Donald Trump’s phones. The wiretap was not an FBI wiretap.

Only 17 days before Obama left office, he changed President Eisenhower’s, tried and true, method of handling very sensitive highly classified signal intelligence. Obama changed the manner in which highly classified and sensitive signal intelligence could be shared by the NSA; he didn’t make that damaging changed the previous 8 years. By authorized the NSA to share very sensitive information with 17 US Intelligence Agencies, Obama allowed too many people access to intelligence that had no need to know. That last minute change by Obama, made it very difficult to track who is currently releasing the classified intelligence information today. Ever since Hillary lost the election, intelligence leaks by intelligence agencies have been ongoing and damaging seriously National Security.

The Democrats tried to hide the fact that the Russian Ambassador had meetings in the Obama White House and Valerie Jarret 22 times to advance the extremely dangerous Iranian Nuclear Weapons Agreement and support Valerie Jarret’s allies in Iran. In addition, 30 Democratic Senators met with Communist diplomats from Russia and China on Capitol Hill to tamp down opposition to, and advance Obama’s dangerous Iranian Nuclear Weapons Agreement.

It is not far-fetched to report, and there should be no surprise for the American people to learn that the Obama administration instigated the surveillance of the Donald Trump’s Presidential Campaign, by simply reviewing how Obama tried to restrict the rights of American citizens, listed below, and learn how Obama violated the US Constitutional rights of Americans over the last 8 years:

(1) The Obama Justice Department wiretapped the telephone of James Rosen, a TV Press Reporter in violation of Freedom of the Press.

(3) Obama’s IRS targeted Conservative Groups in the “Tea Party Scandal” and prevented them from registering as tax free organization to participate in national election; a violation of Freedom of the Right to participate in elections.

(4) Obama’s ATF “Operation Fast and Furious Scandal” perpetrated by then Attorney General Eric Holder transferred 2000 weapons to Mexican Drug Cartels was aimed at somehow compromising the right of Americans to purchase weapons from gun dealers in the US, in violation of the 2nd Amendment. Holder became the first sitting member of the Cabinet of a US President to be held in contempt of Congress for his actions.

(5) When it was discovered that Hillary Clinton had transmitted Top Secret SCI messages via a private unclassified server located in the basement of her home for 4 years, and that some of the compartmented messages with even higher classifications may have compromised the safety of intelligent assets in foreign countries, and possibly resulted in their deaths, Obama said that he had no problem with her unclassified server. Hillary and Obama were responsible for compromising very sensitive national security information. Hillary’s transmissions may have led to the attack in Benghazi, because Hillary’s intercepted messages insisted on the removal of security for the Libyan Ambassador, leaving the US Mission virtually unprotected.

A review of the duplicity by Obama, Hillary Clinton, Valerie Jarret, Democratic Senators, and Democratic Congressmen in their meetings with Russians, that was ignored by the left of center liberal media establishment for 8 years. The Democrats can make the below listed egregious agreements with the Russians, yet the press didn’t accuse them of colluding with Russia. President Trump’s staff is being accused daily of wild Russian conspiracy theories that have no basis in fact. When the American people compare the below listed information with the few phone calls made by General Flynn in the function of his duties, there should be no doubt about who has been colluding with Russia to the detriment of the United States:

(1) In 2012, shortly just prior to the presidential election, Obama was meeting with Putin’s number two, (then Russian President) Dmitry Medvedev). There was an open microphone and Obama was overheard — and it was reported — “You tell Vladimir that I’ll have a lot more flexibility after the election.”

(2) Then Russia invaded Crimea, and conquered the first country, since WWII, and Obama did absolutely nothing.

(3) Then Russia had their military personnel in unmarked uniforms attacked Ukraine; Ukraine literally begged the US for defensive weapons, and Obama did nothing.

(4) Despite the warning of Israel and many other US allies, Obama did nothing when Putin provided surface to air missiles to protect Iran’s nuclear weapons development facilities, protecting them from military strikes by Israel.

(5) When Putin joined Iran and Assad in killing US trained Sunni freedom fighters throughout Syria, Obama did nothing.

(6) Obama allowed Hillary, his Secretary of State, to authorize the transfer of 20% of the United States Uranium to Russia.

(7) Hillary’s Clinton Foundation in Canada received support from a Putin Front Company and John Podesta received stock and was placed on the Board of Directors of that company following the transfer of the 20 % of the US’s uranium to Russia

The true “Russian Collusion” is the collusion between Barack Obama, the Obama administration, Hillary Clinton, and the Russians. Obama approved giving Russia, 20% of the United States uranium production, as a thank you gift for supporting the Iranian Nuclear Weapons Agreement on the international stage, and gave Iran 116 metric tons of US uranium. Obama’s team used the pretext of Russian interference in the election to justify wiretapping the Trump Campaign, and to authorize illegal leaks to the press. Obama continues to oppose the legitimacy of President Trump’s election, opposes the retention of Attorney General Session, and was successful in opposing the retention of General Flynn as the National Security Advisor.

Obama is the first former occupant of the Oval Office in 240 years to try to bring down his successor by sabotaging his programs on a daily basis. The below listed article outlines the 64 ways Obama is sabotaging the Trump administration!!!

Copyright by Capt Joseph R. John. All Rights Reserved. The material can only posted on another Web site or distributed on the Internet by giving full credit to the author. It may not be published, broadcast, or rewritten without the permission from the author.

Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
-Isaiah 6:8

WND Exclusive

64 ways Obama is sabotaging Trump

Ex-president plots to force resignation or impeachment

Garth Kant

818

WASHINGTON – It might seem outrageous and unprecedented that a newly departed president would devote himself to overthrowing his successor, but that is exactly what a mountain of growing evidence appears to indicate.

“Obama’s goal, according to a close family friend, is to oust Trump from the presidency either by forcing his resignation or through his impeachment,” the Daily Mail reported Wednesday.

The source also told the paper that Obama loathes President Trump and considers his presidency illegitimate.

“Obama is dismayed at the way Trump is tearing down his legacy – Obamacare, the social safety net and the welcome mat for refugees he put in place,” the source told the

The following is a list of what has been publicly reported, by WND and others, about what Obama is trying to do to oppose — many say destroy — the Trump presidency and how he is doing it:

1) Obama is using his new mansion, just two miles from the White House, as his headquarters in his insurgency against Trump.

2) Obama’s shadow White House has a taxpayer-funded office, a chief of staff and press secretary.

3) He is working behind the scenes to set up a shadow government to protect his legacy and sabotage the incoming administration.

4) A family source said Obama was reluctant to lead the opposition to Trump because he was “weary and burned out.” But top adviser Valerie Jarrett convinced him it was the only way to salvage his legacy.

5) The source said, “Obama doesn’t make a decision without her,” and he has now embraced his new role leading the campaign to sabotage the administration because he loathes Trump, whose presidency he considers illegitimate.

6) To guide and counsel Obama, Jarrett has moved into his 8,200-square-foot, $5.3-million mansion.

7) According to the source, Michelle Obama and Jarrett will strategize to topple Trump.

8) The former first lady and the Obama Foundation will both have offices in the mansion. Presumably, Jarrett will, too.

9) Obama will implement his plans through a network of leftist nonprofits led by Organizing for Action, or OFA, the organization that grew out of his campaign group, Organizing for America.

10) That will give Obama a virtual army of agitators and organizers at is disposal. Federal tax records show OFA has 32,525 volunteers nationwide. Another 25,000 are actively under training.

11) OFA has more than 250 offices across the country.

12) OFA is equipped with Obama’s 2012 campaign database, which it will use to rally resistance to Trump and get out the vote for Democratic Party candidates.

13) OFA is registered as a “social welfare” non-profit 501(c)(4), that doesn’t have to disclose its donors. OFA has raised more than $40 million in contributions and grants since 2013.

14) OFA volunteers are professionally trained organizers who go through a six-week training program that includes Alinsky agitation tactics. OFA is run by ex-Obama officials and staffers.

15) OFA plans to stage 400 rallies across 42 states this year to attack Trump’s effort to repeal Obamacare.

16) Obama appeared to be behind anti-Trump protests. He praised demonstrations against Trump’s travel ban. And, after the election he personally rallied OFA troops to protect his legacy in a conference call. “Now is the time for some organizing,” he said. “So don’t mope” over the election results.”

17) After Trump’s victory, Obama also promised OFA activists he would soon join them in the battle. “Understand that I’m going to be constrained in what I do with all of you until I am again a private citizen, but that’s not so far off,” he said. “You’re going to see me early next year, and we’re going to be in a position where we can start cooking up all kinds of great stuff.”

18) He also said, “I promise you that next year Michelle and I are going to be right there with you, and the clouds are going to start parting, and we’re going to be busy. I’ve got all kinds of thoughts and ideas about it, but this isn’t the best time to share them.”

19) Since the election, OFA has added staff and accelerated its recruitment of liberal activists.

26) An OFA post on Facebook called on activists to mobilize against Republicans until Feb. 26, when “representatives are going to be in their home districts.”

27) The protesters disrupted town halls including one held in Utah by House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, who was confronted by hundreds of angry protesters claiming to be his constituents.

28) The manual advised protesters to spread out in pairs to make it seem like the whole room opposed the Republican host’s positions. It said, “This will help reinforce the impression of broad consensus.” It also urged them to ask “hostile” questions – while keeping “a firm hold on the mic” – and loudly boo the GOP politician.

29) An audio recording obtained by a Louisiana radio station documented that progressive activists plotted to take over a town hall meeting held by Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La. Activists were instructed to dress like conservatives and leave at home “any signifier that you’re a liberal in order to blend in.”

30) The station identified one of the voices on the recording as James Proctor, a leader of Indivisible Acadiana, a local branch of the national Indivisible organization, which has organized hostile Republican town halls all around the country.

31) Protesters were advised to send video footage to local and national media. “Unfavorable exchanges caught on video can be devastating” for Republican lawmakers, the manual said, when “shared through social media and picked up by local and national media.”

32) Protesters gave networks footage of their confrontations with Chaffetz, forcing him to issue statements defending himself.

33) A study by the Media Research Center found that 88 percent of the broadcast news coverage of the Trump administration was “hostile” during the first 30 days of office. The study analyzed both tone and content for evening newscasts on ABC, NBC and CBS.

34) A script in the training manual advised callers to complain: “I’m honestly scared that a known racist and anti-Semite will be working just feet from the Oval Office … It is everyone’s business if a man who promoted white supremacy is serving as an adviser to the president.” But the document provided no evidence to support the accusations.

35) The manual also advised protesters to flood lawmakers’ offices with phone calls and emails demanding the resignation of top White House adviser Steve Bannon.

37) Talk-show host Rush Limbaugh said he was certain the former president and elements of the Democratic Party were behind the protests because they have been too organized and too professional to be random eruptions of grass-roots discontent. “Obama. George Soros money, I’m certain, is involved,” he said. “They also discuss how to play up to the media, and they illustrate that the media’s not very hard to convince. The media is on their side. The media is only too eager to cooperate, as we know.”

38) Trump agreed Obama was probably behind the protests. “Well, you never know what’s exactly happening behind the scenes,” Trump said. “You know, you’re probably right, or possibly right, but you never know. No, I think that President Obama is behind it because his people are certainly behind it. And the some of the leaks possibly come from that group, you know, some of the leaks which are really very serious leaks because they’re very bad in terms of national security. But I also understand that’s politics. And in terms of him being behind things, that’s politics, and it will probably continue.”

39) Limbaugh said, “Hedge funds and Hollywood are assisting him (Obama), so there is money and propaganda on his side. ABC is among the worst in the mainstream media, which is a total disgrace for Disney.”

40) Limbaugh also noted that impeachment talk is being used by Democrats to derail Trump: “Now, they don’t have the numbers in Congress to pull it off, but can you imagine if Democrat House managers even start breathing the word seriously? The media is gonna be all over it! The media’s gonna eat it up! The media’s gonna be asking Republicans, ‘Why aren’t you joining the Democrats? Don’t you understand? This is a serious movement to impeach the president. He’s doing great damage to the country.’ I can see it all now.”

41) “Obama has circumvented the Democrats with [Organizing for America] and has established a clandestine unaccountable political party taking money from questionable people,” said Martin Armstrong, whose Armstrong Economics provides commentary on a wide range of issues extending beyond economics, including history, global warming, real estate and world events.

42) Armstrong added: “Obama is behind the effort to derail and block the Trump administration on everything. However, Obama may be sowing the seeds of the destruction of the Democratic Party altogether. Those who think Obama is not behind this coup are blinded by their bias.”

43) Armstrong explained that Obama “is deliberately trying to create an uprising and is side-stepping the Democratic Party himself because they will not agree with his agenda.”

44) At the same time, Obama is said to be angling for control over the party by installing his former civil rights chief, Tom Perez, as the newly elected head of the Democratic National Committee. Perez vowed, “It’s time to organize and fight … We must stand up to protect President Obama’s accomplishments,” while also promising, “We’re going to build the strongest grassroots organizing force this country has ever seen.”

45) OFA is working with the Obama Foundation, run by Obama’s former political director, and the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, or NDRC, launched recently by Obama former attorney general Eric Holder, to end what he and Obama call GOP “gerrymandering” of congressional districts and to try to redraw the districts in a way more favorable to Democrats to increase their members in Congress.

46) Holder said he had discussed Obama fundraising for the NDRC and interacting with state lawmakers on the group’s behalf.

47) Spokesman Jared Leopold described the tax-exempt NDRC as a “super group” that brings together the efforts of the Democratic Governors Association, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee and House Majority PAC.

48) On Tuesday, Holder promised Democrats that Obama is getting ready for a public return to politics. “It’s coming. He’s coming,” Holder said while discussing NDRC, which Obama asked him to chair last year. “And he’s ready to roll,” and “will be a more visible part of the effort,” Holder added.

49) Obama signaled his intention before leaving the White House last fall, saying that his post-presidency focus would be on general assembly races and redistricting after the 2020 Census, trying to recapture some of the enormous number of seats Democrats lost at the state level during his presidency.

50) Obama said in September, “Once out of office, I’m gonna stop being polite and start getting real.”

51) Obama hinted that he planned to start speaking out more like an activist than a president. There are “things,” he said in an interview, “that in some ways I suspect I’m able to do better out of this office.” He elaborated that because of the “institutional constraints” of the presidency, “there are things I cannot say.”

52) Obama went on to essentially say he would be an activist after leaving office. “There are institutional obligations I have to carry out that are important for a president of the United States to carry out, but may not always align with what I think would move the ball down the field on the issues that I care most deeply about,” he said.

53) Then, in his final news conference as president, Obama vowed to take action if President Trump dared to “round up” children of illegal immigrants, “roll back voting rights” or engage in “systemic discrimination.”

54) Obama also indicated he would take a more activist role to defend “core values that may be at stake” under a Trump administration. “The reason that we are the only country among advanced democracies that makes it harder to vote, it traces directly back to Jim Crow and the legacy of slavery,” he said.

55) Obama warned Trump not to roll back his executive actions. During his campaign for president, Trump promised to “cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama.” Obama also lectured Trump about the use of executive orders, telling the incoming president to avoid taking unilateral action.

56) The Obama administration apparently spied on Trump’s presidential campaign and transition team. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said he was concerned by the extent of surveillance but not completely surprised, because he “suspected that they were going to do that anyways.” Anonymous sources have been feeding information to the New York Times suggesting the Trump campaign colluded with Russian officials, including intelligence agents.

57) In the Obama administration’s last days, some White House officials scrambled to spread information about Russian efforts to undermine the presidential election – and about possible contacts between associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump and Russians – across the government.

58) Those sources from the Obama administration claimed Trump’s statements stoked fears among some that intelligence could be covered up or destroyed – or its sources exposed – once power changed hands. So they reportedly pushed to preserve the alleged intelligence.

59) Obama White House officials took steps to ensure that as many people as possible inside government could see the intelligence.

Sensational new report documents start of “CIVIL WAR II” in America. Enraged at losing the election, the left has launched an all-out effort to destroy Donald Trump’s presidency.

60) The sources claimed to suspect the Trump campaign might have colluded with Russia on election email hacks, but the Times also reported that American officials acknowledged there is not confirmation of that.

61) The Times reported some officials began asking specific questions at intelligence briefings, knowing the answers would be archived and could be easily unearthed by investigators – including the Senate Intelligence Committee, which in early January announced an inquiry into Russian efforts to influence the election.

62) Intelligence agencies kept the reports at a relatively low classification level to ensure as wide a readership as possible across the government – and, in some cases, among European allies.

63) There was also an effort to pass reports and other sensitive materials to Congress.

64) In the weeks before the assessment was released in January, the intelligence community combed through databases for an array of communications and other information and began producing reports that showed there were contacts during the campaign between Trump associates and Russian officials. However, the Times acknowledged, the nature of the contacts remains unknown, and several of Trump’s associates have done business in Russia, and it was unclear if any of the contacts were related to business dealings.

For a political party that loves to label their opponents as bigots, it’s remarkable how bigoted the Obama administration has been for the last 8 years against Christian religious teachings and Christians in the US Armed Forces who can’t fight back. Christians who have deep religious convictions also have their well held and sincere religious beliefs with regard to abortion, homosexuality, males using girls bathrooms & showers in schools, and have their opposition to teaching very young & innocent grammar school students about homosexuality. According to former counter-terrorism training officer and American police detective George Tobias, in the below listed article, the Clinton administration would continue Obama’s bigotry toward Christians,”

The latest WikiLeaks dump of John Podesta E-mails shows that the Obama administration kept a list of high-profile Muslims it wanted to appoint to top Obama administration jobs, sub-cabinet jobs, outside boards, agencies, and policy committees. The 2008 E-mails reveal that it wasn’t enough to be Arab American, you had to be Arab and Muslim to make it onto Obama’s list.

“Many Lebanese Americans, for example, are Christian,” notes one E-mail written by Preeta Bansal, who worked on the Obama transition team headed by John Podesta. John Podesta is now Hillary Clinton’s Presidential Campaign Chairman. “In the last list (of outside boards/commissions), most who are listed appear to be Muslim American, except that a handful (where noted) may be Arab American but of an unacceptable religion (esp. Christian).”

In another indication of outright the bigotry against Christians by the Obama administration, a law suit was filed against DHS by the Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center, a progressive liberal advocacy organization. Heartland is “dedicated to ensuring human rights protections” for immigrants and asylum seekers—including apparently for terrorists. Heartland filed a FOIA lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security for discriminating against Syrian and Assyrian Christian refugees for the last 5 years.

In an otherwise unremarkable opinion, obtained after filing, a Federal Freedom of Information Act request, a Federal Appellate Court Judge issued a sharp rejoinder to the Obama administration over an issue that has been written about and broadcast in the national news media. The Appellate Judge said there was almost a complete lack of Syrian Christian refugees being brought into the US—the numbers are included in the below listed article.

The lawsuit also claimed that DHS was refusing to release the identity of Tier III terrorist organizations, unlike the identities of what are defined as Tier I and Tier II terrorist organizations that are publicly identified.

Tier III terrorist organizations “tend to be groups about which the U.S. government does not have good intelligence, making it essential that [DHS] be able to obtain information about them during screening interviews that are as focused and complete as possible.” Despite the lack of information, Obama refused to let the FBI interview entering Muslim refugees to determine if they had terrorist ties

To further reveal the bigotry against Christians practiced by Obama and Hillary’s State Department the following facts are submitted. Although ten percent of the population of Syria are Syrian and Assyrian Christian, yet despite that fact, less than one-half of 1 percent of the Syrian Refugees admitted to the United States over the last 8 years were Christian. Syrian and Assyrian Christians have been in desperate need of a safe haven from ISIS Radical Islamic Terrorists who have been butchering, and slaughtering Christians for those 5 years.

ISIS has been crucifying Christians, burning them alive, drowning them in cages, beheading them, burying them alive, and making them kneel before shooting them in the back of their heads. Of the nearly 11,000 Syrian Refugees recently allowed to enter the United States by Obama, only 56 Christians were among them. The Greek Catholic Relief Agency has over 300,000 Syrian and Assyrian Christians in camps seeking entry into the US, but Obama has refused to let them enter the US for the last 5 years.

Few if any of the ISIS Radical Islamic Terrorists are being held accountable for their heinous crimes against Syrian and Assyrian Christians. Besides slaughtering Syrian and Assyrian Christians, much of Iraq’s Christian community has been ripped from their ancient ancestral homes on the Plains of Nineveh. The ISIS Radical Islamic Terrorists are also responsible for the destruction of their Christians’ cultural heritage symbols in their churches, ancient bibles, 2000 year old Christian churches, and Assyrian Christian monasteries. However, while Obama frets over Islamophobia, hardly anything is said about the horrors faced by the defenseless followers of Jesus Christ.

So while the Obama administration has brought in over 900,000+ Middle East Muslim Refugees into the US, and has resettled them in 187 cities throughout the United States, much less than ½ of 1 percent of the entering refugees were Christians. Obama has been concealing basic information about the entering Muslim refugees, behind a wall of government secrecy, and at the same time refusing to let the FBI interview entering Muslim refugees to determine if they have terrorist ties,

The 900,000+ Middle East Muslim Refugees that have been resettled throughout the US, without strict instruction to the resettling agencies not to inform elected local & state officials and their law enforcement agencies where those refugees are being placed. Despite the fact that the Syrian refugee crisis is the catalyst that was responsible for the infiltration ISIS Radical Islamic Terrorists into Western Europe, resulting in many murderous Radical Islamic Terrorist attacks against unsuspecting Europeans. ISIS has openly bragged that the terrorists that they trained, would also be infiltrated into the United States.

Obama is threatening to veto the current Military Budget passed by Congress that is currently sitting on his desk awaiting his signature, because it protects Christians religious beliefs. Obama wants the absolute freedom to discriminate against Christian social service providers who interact with the government—all because many of those religious organizations are unable to endorse the LGBT cause, because of their well held religious teachings and beliefs. The Russell Amendment in the budget, authored by an endorsed Combat Veteran For Congress, Cong Steve Russell. LTC-USA (Ret) (R-OK-5), merely reaffirms the protection of Christians and Jewish members of the military, while clarifying that religious organizations (Jewish and Christian) have a right to employ people committed to authentically live and operate in accordance with their faith tenets. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act already specifically protects a religious organizations’ ability to hire based on religion. In short, Christian and Jewish religious organizations are free to be religious organizations.

Obama’s previously violated the Religious Freedom of Chaplins who were refused the right to read letters to their congregations from the pulpit from their Cardinals (the very reason why the Pilgrims left England and migrated to America in 1620). That restriction imposed by Obama, not only violates the Chaplin’s Freedom of Religion, it also a violates their Freedom of Speech. When it comes to sexual orientation and gender identity policies Obama’s restrictions of the religious beliefs of members of the US Armed Forces is egregious. Obama is the first occupant of the Oval Office to refuse to guarantee Religious Freedom for members of the US Armed Forces.

By clicking on the below listed link, you will be able to watch a video of Dinesh D’Souza, who was a Keynote Speaker at one of the Combat Veterans For Congress Patriotic Gala Events, defend Christianity from Obama’s oppression. Dinesh provides his “Words of Wisdom to Christians”, and details Obama’s and Hillary’s opposition to Freedom of Religion.

Copyright by Capt Joseph R. John. All Rights Reserved. The material can only posted on another Web site or distributed on the Internet by giving full credit to the author. It may not be published, broadcast, or rewritten without the permission from the author.

Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
-Isaiah 6:8
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NewsWithViews.com
OBAMA, HILLARY AND MEDIA DISPLAY BIGOTRY AGAINST MIDDLE EASTERN CHRISTIANS
By Jim Kouri, CPP
September 7, 2016
President Barack Obama and his hopeful successor Hillary Clinton are continuing their open-door policy to Muslim refugees fleeing the turmoil in Syria, Iraq and other regions, but a number of American Christian organizations claim the two Democrat leaders have shown less sympathy for Syrian and Iraqi Christians.

In fact, of the 10,801 brought into the United States by the end of September, only 56 of them are listed as Christians (see numerical breakdown below). The vast majority of the Muslims are part of the Sunni sect, which is the one represented by the likes of Al Q’ida, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Al-Shabaab (Somalia) and others.
Religious Denomination Number of Refugees
Catholic 12
Christian 29
Greek Orthodox 1
Jehovah Witness 4
Muslim (unspecified) 90
Muslim (Shiite) 20
Muslim (Sunni) 10,612
No Religion 1
Orthodox 6
Other 5
Protestant 4
Yazidi 17

Religious denominations of the 10,801 Syrian Refuges who have been admitted into the United States since the Obama Administration’s announced plan to admit a n additional 11,000 Syrian refugees for FY2016 on September 10, 2015. Source: -Refugee Processing Center

“For a political party that loves to label their opponents as bigots, it’s remarkable how bigoted the current administration is and how bigoted the Clinton administration will continue to be against Christians,” said former counter-terrorism training officer and American police detective George Tobiaso.

According to several news reports from outlets in the United States and Europe, more than 70 mass graves were discovered in Iraq and Syria containing thousands of decaying bodies killed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and other Islamic terrorist groups who buried the victims of their atrocities.

As many as 15,000 victims — men, women and children — slaughtered during the occupation of towns and villages by ISIS, a group known for executing Christians, may be buried in the sites across territory that was occupied by ISIS, Al Nusra Front or other radical Muslims.

According to the Homeland Security News Wire, “The [Associated Press] used satellite imagery, photos, and interviews, to find the location of seventeen mass graves in Syria and sixteen mass graves in Iraq – although the latter are in areas still too dangerous to excavate. AP says from 5,200 to more than 15,000 ISIS victims are buried in the graves it knows about.”

Few if any are being held accountable for the heinous crimes. Besides the killings, much of Iraq’s Christian community have been ripped from their ancestral homes in Nineveh. The jihadists are also responsible for the destruction of Christians’ cultural heritage. However, while Obama frets over Islamophobia, hardly anything is said about the horrors being faced by followers of Jesus Christ.

Many more mass graves may be found once Isis retreats after losing ground outside of Iraqi cities of Mosul and Raqqa which remain under jihadists’ control.

According to the watchdog group that’s known for its accuracy and diligence: Earlier this year Judicial Watch uncovered State Department records confirming that “Arab extremists” are entering the U.S. through Mexico with the assistance of smuggling network “cells.”

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Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police. He’s former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed “Crack City” by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. He’s also served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country.
He writes for many police and crime magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times, The Narc Officer, Campus Law Enforcement Journal, and others. He’s appeared as on-air commentator for over 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, Fox News, etc. His book Assume The Position is available at Amazon.Com, Booksamillion.com, and can be ordered at local bookstores.

1. Imprimis is paid for by donations to the Imprimis program so it is free to you. We donate at http://www.hillsdale.edu/imprimis , you can too;
2. For decades I have written on this particular subject. In the February issue, a federal prosecutor writes his legal findings.

Y’all should get a free subscription.

Y’all should read this particular issue, then poke through the blog for supporting articles.

If you are a woman, or related to a woman, this is a MUST READ for you and her and them.

I rarely pull out my dusty old trident, but in this case, here goes. I was a Navy SEAL officer in the 1980s, and this kind of operation (transiting small boats in foreign waters) was our bread and butter. Today, these boats both not only had radar, but multiple GPS devices, including chart plotters that place your boat’s icon right on the chart. The claim by Iran that the USN boats “strayed into Iranian waters” is complete bull$#it.

For an open-water transit between nations, the course is studied and planned in advance by the leaders of the Riverine Squadron, with specific attention given to staying wide and clear of any hostile nation’s claimed territorial waters. The boats are given a complete mechanical check before departure, and they have sufficient fuel to accomplish their mission plus extra. If, for some unexplainable and rare circumstance one boat broke down, the other would tow it, that’s why two boats go on these trips and not one! It’s called “self-rescue” and it’s SOP.

This entire situation is in my area of expertise. I can state with complete confidence that both Iran and our own State Department are lying. The boats did not enter Iranian waters. They were overtaken in international waters by Iranian patrol boats that were so superior in both speed and firepower that it became a “hands up!” situation, with automatic cannons in the 40mm to 76mm range pointed at them point-blank. Surrender, hands up, or be blown out of the water. I assume that the Iranians had an English speaker on a loudspeaker to make the demand. This takedown was no accident or coincidence, it was a planned slap across America’s face.

Just watch. The released sailors will be ordered not to say a word about the incident, and the Iranians will have taken every GPS device, chart-plotter etc off the boats, so that we will not be able to prove where our boats were taken.

The “strayed into Iranian waters” story being put out by Iran and our groveling and appeasing State Dept. is utter and complete BS from one end to the other.

middle-east-scholarshipsIn theory, Middle East Studies programs are a good idea. One of the biggest impediments to countering modern jihadism has been the lack of historical knowledge about the region and Islam. But even the attention and urgency that followed the terrorist attacks on 9/11 have not led to such knowledge. The result has been policies pursued both by Republicans and Democrats that are doomed to fail, as the current chaos in the region attests.

Rather than enlightening citizens and policy-makers, Middle Eastern Studies programs have darkened our understanding. As Martin Kramer documented in his important 2002 study Ivory Towers on Sand [3], most programs have become purveyors not of knowledge but of ideology. Under the influence of literary critic Edward Said’s historically challenged book Orientalism––“a work,” historian Robert Irwin has written [4], “of malignant charlatanry, in which it is hard to distinguish honest mistakes from willful misrepresentations”­­––Middle East Studies programs, Kramer writes, “came under a take-no-prisoners assault, which rejected the idea of objective standards, disguised the vice of politicization as the virtue of commitment, and replaced proficiency with ideology.” The ideology, of course, comprised the old Marxist narrative of Western colonial and imperial crimes, a Third Worldism that idealizes the dark-skinned, innocent “other” victimized by Western depredations, and the juvenile romance of revolutionary violence.

Yet Said’s baleful influence has not been limited to Middle East Studies programs, one of which has been created at my campus of the California State University, replete with theproblems [5] Kramer catalogues. It has insidiously corrupted much of the humanities and social sciences, operating under the innocuous rubric of “postcolonial” studies, which to the unwary suggests a historical rather than an ideological category. Through General Education courses that serve students across the university, and in departments like English that train primary and secondary school teachers, Saidian postcolonial ideology has been shaping the attitudes and presumed knowledge of Islam and the Middle East far beyond the reach of Middle East Studies programs.

Said’s dubious argument in Orientalism is that the work of Western scholars on the Middle East embodied “a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient,” thus creating the intellectual infrastructure for justifying colonialism and imperialism. As such, every European scholar perforce was “a racist, an imperialist, and totally ethnocentric.” For social science and humanities departments committed totally to the multiculturalist melodrama of white racism and oppression of the dark-skinned “other,” Said’s work seemingly provides scholarly bona fides to ideas that are in fact expressive of illiberal grievance politics.

English departments have been particularly vulnerable to Said’s work, for he overlaid his bad history with watered down Foucauldian ideas about the relationship of power to discourse. Thus English professors seduced by the poststructuralist theory ascendant in 1978 when Orientalism was published found in that book a seemingly sophisticated theoretical paradigm that shared both poststructuralism’s disdain for objectivity and truth, and its “hermeneutics of suspicion,” the notion that the apparent meaning of a discourse is a mask for the sinister machinations of power at the expense of the excluded “other.”

More important, postcolonialism is a politically activist theory, bound up as it is in the politics of the Middle East, especially the Arab-Israeli conflict. Now English professors could avoid the legitimate charge that poststructuralism, despite its patina of leftist ideology, was in fact an evasion of politics, a “symbolic politics,” as historian Russell Jacoby put it, “a replacement for, and a diversion from, the gritty politics of the community and the street.” On the contrary, the purveyors of postcolonialism were on the barricades, struggling to liberate Palestinians and other Muslims oppressed by a neo-imperialist America and its puppet Israel. Rather than pampered elitists guaranteed jobs for life, now the professors could fancy themselves freedom fighters and champions of the ex-colonial brown peoples still exploited and oppressed by the capitalist, racist West.

Finally, the dogma of multicultural “diversity” now firmly enshrined in American universities likewise has found Saidian postcolonialism a useful tool for interpreting and teaching literature, one that exposes the Western literary canon’s hidden racism and oppression. Moreover, in a university like Fresno State, half of whose students are minorities, a postcolonial perspective can establish a rapport with minority students who are encouraged to interpret their own experiences through the same lens of unjust exclusion and hurtful distortions of their culture and identity. At the same time white students are schooled in their privilege and guilt, minorities can be comforted by a narrative that privileges them as victims of historical oppression, one masked by the unearned prestige of the classics written by “dead white males.” Now minority students learn that Shakespeare’s Caliban is the true hero the Tempest with whom they should identify, the displaced victim of rapacious colonialists and slavers like Prospero who unjustly define the indigenous peoples as savages and cannibals in order to justify the brutal appropriation of their lands and labor.

Over the thirty years I have taught in the California State University, I have seen this transformation of the English department. Reading lists dominated by contemporary ethnic writers are increasingly displacing the classics of English literature, and even when traditional works are on the list, the books are often taught from the postcolonial perspective. New hires more and more comprise those Ph.D.’s whose specialties lie in ethnic or “world” literature, replacing the Shakespeare scholars and others trained to teach the traditional English and American literary canon. The traditional content of a liberal education––“the best which has been thought and said in the world,” as Matthew Arnold wrote––is disappearing, replaced by multicultural melodramas of Western crime and guilt.

More important for the culture at large, many of these students will go on to earn teaching credentials and staff public schools. They will carry the postcolonial ideology into their own classrooms, influencing yet another generation and reinforcing a received wisdom that will shape their students’ understanding of the important threats to our national security and interests emanating from the Middle East, especially jihadism. And it will encourage ordinary citizens to assent to the demonization of our most valuable regional ally, Israel, currently battling the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement that can more easily gain traction among those who from grade school to university have been exposed to the postcolonial ideology.

The damage done to our foreign policy by Middle East Studies is obvious. The influence of the godfather of such programs, Edward Said, on the social sciences and humanities departments like English is more insidious and subtle. But it is no less dangerous.

The Quran contains at least 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islamic rule. Some are quite graphic, with commands to chop off heads and fingers and kill infidels wherever they may be hiding. Muslims who do not join the fight are called ‘hypocrites’ and warned that Allah will send them to Hell if they do not join the slaughter.

Unlike nearly all of the Old Testament verses of violence, the verses of violence in the Quran are mostly open-ended, meaning that they are not restrained by the historical context of the surrounding text. They are part of the eternal, unchanging word of Allah, and just as relevant or subjective as anything else in the Quran.

The context of violent passages is more ambiguous than might be expected of a perfect book from a loving God, however this can work both ways. Most of today’s Muslims exercise a personal choice to interpret their holy book’s call to arms according to their own moral preconceptions about justifiable violence. Apologists cater to their preferences with tenuous arguments that gloss over historical fact and generally do not stand up to scrutiny. Still, it is important to note that the problem is not bad people, but bad ideology.

Unfortunately, there are very few verses of tolerance and peace to abrogate or even balance out the many that call for nonbelievers to be fought and subdued until they either accept humiliation, convert to Islam, or are killed. Muhammad’s own martial legacy – and that of his companions – along with the remarkable stress on violence found in the Quran have produced a trail of blood and tears across world history.

The Quran:

Quran (2:191-193) – “And kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out. And Al-Fitnah [disbelief or unrest] is worse than killing…

but if they desist, then lo! Allah is forgiving and merciful. And fight them until there is no more Fitnah [disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allah] and worship is for Allah alone. But if they cease, let there be no transgression except against Az-Zalimun (the polytheists, and wrong-doers, etc.)” (Translation is from the Noble Quran) The historical context of this passage is not defensive warfare, since Muhammad and his Muslims had just relocated to Medina and were not under attack by their Meccan adversaries. In fact, the verses urge offensive warfare, in that Muslims are to drive Meccans out of their own city (which they later did). The use of the word “persecution” by some Muslim translators is thus disingenuous (the actual Muslim words for persecution – “idtihad” – and oppression – a variation of “z-l-m” – do not appear in the verse). The actual Arabic comes from “fitna” which can mean disbelief, or the disorder that results from unbelief or temptation. Taken as a whole, the context makes clear that violence is being authorized until “religion is for Allah” – ie. unbelievers desist in their unbelief.

Quran (2:244) – “Then fight in the cause of Allah, and know that Allah Heareth and knoweth all things.”

Quran (2:216) – “Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knoweth, and ye know not.” Not only does this verse establish that violence can be virtuous, but it also contradicts the myth that fighting is intended only in self-defense, since the audience was obviously not under attack at the time. From the Hadith, we know that this verse was narrated at a time that Muhammad was actually trying to motivate his people into raiding merchant caravans for loot.

Quran (3:56) – “As to those who reject faith, I will punish them with terrible agony in this world and in the Hereafter, nor will they have anyone to help.”

Quran (3:151) – “Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers, for that they joined companions with Allah, for which He had sent no authority”. This speaks directly of polytheists, yet it also includes Christians, since they believe in the Trinity (ie. what Muhammad incorrectly believed to be ‘joining companions to Allah’).

Quran (4:74) – “Let those fight in the way of Allah who sell the life of this world for the other. Whoso fighteth in the way of Allah, be he slain or be he victorious, on him We shall bestow a vast reward.” The martyrs of Islam are unlike the early Christians, who were led meekly to the slaughter. These Muslims are killed in battle as they attempt to inflict death and destruction for the cause of Allah. This is the theological basis for today’s suicide bombers.

Quran (4:76) – “Those who believe fight in the cause of Allah…”

Quran (4:89) – “They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they): But take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah (From what is forbidden). But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks.”

Quran (4:95) – “Not equal are those of the believers who sit (at home), except those who are disabled (by injury or are blind or lame, etc.), and those who strive hard and fight in the Cause of Allah with their wealth and their lives. Allah has preferred in grades those who strive hard and fight with their wealth and their lives above those who sit (at home). Unto each, Allah has promised good (Paradise), but Allah has preferred those who strive hard and fight, above those who sit (at home) by a huge reward ” This passage criticizes “peaceful” Muslims who do not join in the violence, letting them know that they are less worthy in Allah’s eyes. It also demolishes the modern myth that “Jihad” doesn’t mean holy war in the Quran, but rather a spiritual struggle. Not only is this Arabic word used in this passage, but it is clearly not referring to anything spiritual, since the physically disabled are given exemption. (The Hadith reveals the context of the passage to be in response to a blind man’s protest that he is unable to engage in Jihad and this is reflected in other translations of the verse). Allah will allow the disabled into Paradise, but will provide a larger reward to those who are able to kill in his cause.

Quran (4:104) – “And be not weak hearted in pursuit of the enemy; if you suffer pain, then surely they (too) suffer pain as you suffer pain…” Is pursuing an injured and retreating enemy really an act of self-defense?

Quran (5:33) – “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement”

Quran (8:12) – “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them” No reasonable person would interpret this to mean a spiritual struggle.

Quran (8:15) – “O ye who believe! When ye meet those who disbelieve in battle, turn not your backs to them. (16)Whoso on that day turneth his back to them, unless maneuvering for battle or intent to join a company, he truly hath incurred wrath from Allah, and his habitation will be hell, a hapless journey’s end.”

Quran (8:39) – “And fight with them until there is no more fitna (disorder, unbelief) and religion should be only for Allah” Some translations interpret “fitna” as “persecution”, but the traditional understanding of this word is not supported by the historical context (See notes for 2:193). The Meccans were simply refusing Muhammad access to their city during Haj. Other Muslims were allowed to travel there – just not as an armed group, since Muhammad had declared war on Mecca prior to his eviction. The Meccans were also acting in defense of their religion, since it was Muhammad’s intention to destroy their idols and establish Islam by force (which he later did). Hence the critical part of this verse is to fight until “religion is only for Allah”, meaning that the true justification of violence was the unbelief of the opposition. According to the Sira (Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 324) Muhammad further explains that “Allah must have no rivals.”

Quran (8:57) – “If thou comest on them in the war, deal with them so as to strike fear in those who are behind them, that haply they may remember.”

Quran (8:67) – “It is not for a Prophet that he should have prisoners of war until he had made a great slaughter in the land…”

Quran (8:59-60) – “And let not those who disbelieve suppose that they can outstrip (Allah’s Purpose). Lo! they cannot escape. Make ready for them all thou canst of (armed) force and of horses tethered, that thereby ye may dismay the enemy of Allah and your enemy.”

Quran (8:65) – “O Prophet, exhort the believers to fight…”

Quran (9:5) – “So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captive and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them.” According to this verse, the best way of staying safe from Muslim violence is to convert to Islam (prayer (salat) and the poor tax (zakat) are among the religion’s Five Pillars). This popular claim that the Quran only inspires violence within the context of self-defense is seriously challenged by this passage as well, since the Muslims to whom it was written were obviously not under attack. Had they been, then there would have been no waiting period (earlier verses make it a duty for Muslims to fight in self-defense, even during the sacred months). The historical context is Mecca after the idolaters were subjugated by Muhammad and posed no threat. Once the Muslims had power, they violently evicted those unbelievers who would not convert.

Quran (9:14) – “Fight against them so that Allah will punish them by your hands and disgrace them and give you victory over them and heal the breasts of a believing people.” Humiliating and hurting non-believers not only has the blessing of Allah, but it is ordered as a means of carrying out his punishment and even “healing” the hearts of Muslims.

Quran (9:20) – “Those who believe, and have left their homes and striven with their wealth and their lives in Allah’s way are of much greater worth in Allah’s sight. These are they who are triumphant.” The Arabic word interpreted as “striving” in this verse is the same root as “Jihad”. The context is obviously holy war.

Quran (9:29) – “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” “People of the Book” refers to Christians and Jews. According to this verse, they are to be violently subjugated, with the sole justification being their religious status. Verse 9:33 tells Muslims that Allah has charted them to make Islam “superior over all religions.” This chapter was one of the final “revelations” from Allah and it set in motion the tenacious military expansion, in which Muhammad’s companions managed to conquer two-thirds of the Christian world in the next 100 years. Islam is intended to dominate all other people and faiths.

Quran (9:30) – “And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah; and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah; these are the words of their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before; may Allah destroy them; how they are turned away!”

Quran (9:38-39) – “O ye who believe! what is the matter with you, that, when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, ye cling heavily to the earth? Do ye prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the Hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place.” This is a warning to those who refuse to fight, that they will be punished with Hell.

Quran (9:41) – “Go forth, light-armed and heavy-armed, and strive with your wealth and your lives in the way of Allah! That is best for you if ye but knew.” See also the verse that follows (9:42) – “If there had been immediate gain (in sight), and the journey easy, they would (all) without doubt have followed thee, but the distance was long, (and weighed) on them” This contradicts the myth that Muslims are to fight only in self-defense, since the wording implies that battle will be waged a long distance from home (in another country and on Christian soil, in this case, according to the historians).

Quran (9:73) – “O Prophet! strive hard against the unbelievers and the hypocrites and be unyielding to them; and their abode is hell, and evil is the destination.” Dehumanizing those who reject Islam, by reminding Muslims that unbelievers are merely firewood for Hell, makes it easier to justify slaughter. It also explains why today’s devout Muslims have little regard for those outside the faith.

Quran (9:88) – “But the Messenger, and those who believe with him, strive and fight with their wealth and their persons: for them are (all) good things: and it is they who will prosper.”

Quran (9:111) – “Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain: a promise binding on Him in truth, through the Law, the Gospel, and the Quran: and who is more faithful to his covenant than Allah? then rejoice in the bargain which ye have concluded: that is the achievement supreme.” How does the Quran define a true believer?

Quran (9:123) – “O you who believe! fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness.”

Quran (17:16) – “And when We wish to destroy a town, We send Our commandment to the people of it who lead easy lives, but they transgress therein; thus the word proves true against it, so We destroy it with utter destruction.” Note that the crime is moral transgression, and the punishment is “utter destruction.” (Before ordering the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden first issued Americans an invitation to Islam).

Quran (18:65-81) – This parable lays the theological groundwork for honor killings, in which a family member is murdered because they brought shame to the family, either through apostasy or perceived moral indiscretion. The story (which is not found in any Jewish or Christian source) tells of Moses encountering a man with “special knowledge” who does things which don’t seem to make sense on the surface, but are then justified according to later explanation. One such action is to murder a youth for no apparent reason (74). However, the wise man later explains that it was feared that the boy would “grieve” his parents by “disobedience and ingratitude.” He was killed so that Allah could provide them a ‘better’ son. (Note: This is one reason why honor killing is sanctioned by Sharia. Reliance of the Traveler (Umdat al-Saliq) says that punishment for murder is not applicable when a parent or grandparent kills their offspring (o.1.1-2).)

Quran (21:44) – “We gave the good things of this life to these men and their fathers until the period grew long for them; See they not that We gradually reduce the land (in their control) from its outlying borders? Is it then they who will win?”

Quran (25:52) – “Therefore listen not to the Unbelievers, but strive against them with the utmost strenuousness…” “Strive against” is Jihad – obviously not in the personal context. It’s also significant to point out that this is a Meccan verse.

Quran (33:60-62) – “If the hypocrites, and those in whose hearts is a disease, and the alarmists in the city do not cease, We verily shall urge thee on against them, then they will be your neighbors in it but a little while. Accursed, they will be seized wherever found and slain with a (fierce) slaughter.” This passage sanctions the slaughter (rendered “merciless” and “horrible murder” in other translations) against three groups: Hypocrites (Muslims who refuse to “fight in the way of Allah” (3:167) and hence don’t act as Muslims should), those with “diseased hearts” (which include Jews and Christians 5:51-52), and “alarmists” or “agitators who include those who merely speak out against Islam, according to Muhammad’s biographers. It is worth noting that the victims are to be sought out by Muslims, which is what today’s terrorists do. If this passage is meant merely to apply to the city of Medina, then it is unclear why it is included in Allah’s eternal word to Muslim generations.

Quran (47:3-4) – “Those who disbelieve follow falsehood, while those who believe follow the truth from their Lord… So, when you meet (in fight Jihad in Allah’s Cause), those who disbelieve smite at their necks till when you have killed and wounded many of them, then bind a bond firmly (on them, i.e. take them as captives)… If it had been Allah’s Will, He Himself could certainly have punished them (without you). But (He lets you fight), in order to test you, some with others. But those who are killed in the Way of Allah, He will never let their deeds be lost.” Those who reject Allah are to be killed in Jihad. The wounded are to be held captive for ransom. The only reason Allah doesn’t do the dirty work himself is to to test the faithfulness of Muslims. Those who kill pass the test.

Quran (47:35) – “Be not weary and faint-hearted, crying for peace, when ye should be uppermost (Shakir: “have the upper hand”) for Allah is with you,”

Quran (48:17) – “There is no blame for the blind, nor is there blame for the lame, nor is there blame for the sick (that they go not forth to war). And whoso obeyeth Allah and His messenger, He will make him enter Gardens underneath which rivers flow; and whoso turneth back, him will He punish with a painful doom.” Contemporary apologists sometimes claim that Jihad means ‘spiritual struggle.’ Is so, then why are the blind, lame and sick exempted? This verse also says that those who do not fight will suffer torment in hell.

Quran (48:29) – “Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. And those with him are hard (ruthless) against the disbelievers and merciful among themselves” Islam is not about treating everyone equally. There are two very distinct standards that are applied based on religious status. Also the word used for ‘hard’ or ‘ruthless’ in this verse shares the same root as the word translated as ‘painful’ or severe’ in verse 16.

Quran (61:4) – “Surely Allah loves those who fight in His way” Religion of Peace, indeed! The verse explicitly refers to “battle array” meaning that it is speaking of physical conflict. This is followed by (61:9): “He it is who has sent His Messenger (Mohammed) with guidance and the religion of truth (Islam) to make it victorious over all religions even though the infidels may resist.” (See next verse, below). Infidels who resist Islamic rule are to be fought.

Quran (61:10-12) – “O You who believe! Shall I guide you to a commerce that will save you from a painful torment. That you believe in Allah and His Messenger (Muhammad ), and that you strive hard and fight in the Cause of Allah with your wealth and your lives, that will be better for you, if you but know! (If you do so) He will forgive you your sins, and admit you into Gardens under which rivers flow, and pleasant dwelling in Gardens of ‘Adn – Eternity [‘Adn (Edn) Paradise], that is indeed the great success.” This verse refers to physical battle in order to make Islam victorious over other religions (see above). It uses the Arabic word, Jihad.

Quran (66:9) – “O Prophet! Strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and be stern with them. Hell will be their home, a hapless journey’s end.” The root word of “Jihad” is used again here. The context is clearly holy war, and the scope of violence is broadened to include “hypocrites” – those who call themselves Muslims but do not act as such.

Other verses calling Muslims to Jihad can be found here at AnsweringIslam.org

From the Hadith:

Bukhari (52:177) – Allah’s Apostle said, “The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. “O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.”

Bukhari (52:256) – The Prophet… was asked whether it was permissible to attack the pagan warriors at night with the probability of exposing their women and children to danger. The Prophet replied, “They (i.e. women and children) are from them (i.e. pagans).” In this command, Muhammad establishes that it is permissible to kill non-combatants in the process of killing a perceived enemy. This provides justification for the many Islamic terror bombings.

Bukhari (52:65) – The Prophet said, ‘He who fights that Allah’s Word, Islam, should be superior, fights in Allah’s Cause. Muhammad’s words are the basis for offensive Jihad – spreading Islam by force. This is how it was understood by his companions, and by the terrorists of today.

Bukhari (52:220) – Allah’s Apostle said… ‘I have been made victorious with terror’

Abu Dawud (14:2526) – The Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) said: Three things are the roots of faith: to refrain from (killing) a person who utters, “There is no god but Allah” and not to declare him unbeliever whatever sin he commits, and not to excommunicate him from Islam for his any action; and jihad will be performed continuously since the day Allah sent me as a prophet until the day the last member of my community will fight with the Dajjal (Antichrist)

Abu Dawud (14:2527) – The Prophet said: Striving in the path of Allah (jihad) is incumbent on you along with every ruler, whether he is pious or impious

Muslim (1:33) – the Messenger of Allah said: I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify that there is no god but Allah, that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah

Bukhari (8:387) – Allah’s Apostle said, “I have been ordered to fight the people till they say: ‘None has the right to be worshipped but Allah’. And if they say so, pray like our prayers, face our Qibla and slaughter as we slaughter, then their blood and property will be sacred to us and we will not interfere with them except legally.”

Muslim (1:30) – “The Messenger of Allah said: I have been commanded to fight against people so long as they do not declare that there is no god but Allah.”

Bukhari (52:73) – “Allah’s Apostle said, ‘Know that Paradise is under the shades of swords’.”

Bukhari (11:626) – [Muhammad said:] “I decided to order a man to lead the prayer and then take a flame to burn all those, who had not left their houses for the prayer, burning them alive inside their homes.”

Muslim (1:149) – “Abu Dharr reported: I said: Messenger of Allah, which of the deeds is the best? He (the Holy Prophet) replied: Belief in Allah and Jihad in His cause…”

Muslim (20:4645) – “…He (the Messenger of Allah) did that and said: There is another act which elevates the position of a man in Paradise to a grade one hundred (higher), and the elevation between one grade and the other is equal to the height of the heaven from the earth. He (Abu Sa’id) said: What is that act? He replied: Jihad in the way of Allah! Jihad in the way of Allah!”

Muslim (20:4696) – “the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) said: ‘One who died but did not fight in the way of Allah nor did he express any desire (or determination) for Jihad died the death of a hypocrite.'”

Muslim (19:4321-4323) – Three separate hadith in which Muhammad shrugs over the news that innocent children were killed in a raid by his men against unbelievers. His response: “They are of them (meaning the enemy).”

Muslim (19:4294) – “When the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) appointed anyone as leader of an army or detachment he would especially exhort him… He would say: Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war… When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them… If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them.”

Bukhari 1:35 “The person who participates in (Holy Battles) in Allah’s cause and nothing compels him do so except belief in Allah and His Apostle, will be recompensed by Allah either with a reward, or booty ( if he survives) or will be admitted to Paradise ( if he is killed).”

Tabari 7:97 The morning after the murder of Ashraf, the Prophet declared, “Kill any Jew who falls under your power.” Ashraf was a poet, killed by Muhammad’s men because he insulted Islam. Here, Muhammad widens the scope of his orders to kill. An innocent Jewish businessman was then slain by his Muslim partner, merely for being non-Muslim.

Tabari 9:69 “Killing Unbelievers is a small matter to us” The words of Muhammad, prophet of Islam.

Tabari 17:187 “‘By God, our religion (din) from which we have departed is better and more correct than that which these people follow. Their religion does not stop them from shedding blood, terrifying the roads, and seizing properties.’ And they returned to their former religion.” The words of a group of Christians who had converted to Islam, but realized their error after being shocked by the violence and looting committed in the name of Allah. The price of their decision to return to a religion of peace was that the men were beheaded and the woman and children enslaved by the caliph Ali.

Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 484: – “Allah said, ‘A prophet must slaughter before collecting captives. A slaughtered enemy is driven from the land. Muhammad, you craved the desires of this world, its goods and the ransom captives would bring. But Allah desires killing them to manifest the religion.’”

Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 990: – Lest anyone think that cutting off someone’s head while screaming ‘Allah Akbar!’ is a modern creation, here is an account of that very practice under Muhammad, who seems to approve.

Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 992: – “Fight everyone in the way of Allah and kill those who disbelieve in Allah.” Muhammad’s instructions to his men prior to a military raid.

Saifur Rahman, The Sealed Nectar p.227-228 – “Embrace Islam… If you two accept Islam, you will remain in command of your country; but if your refuse my Call, you’ve got to remember that all of your possessions are perishable. My horsemen will appropriate your land, and my Prophethood will assume preponderance over your kingship.” One of several letters from Muhammad to rulers of other countries. The significance is that the recipients were not making war or threatening Muslims. Their subsequent defeat and subjugation by Muhammad’s armies was justified merely on the basis of their unbelief.

Additional Notes:

Other than the fact that Muslims haven’t killed every non-Muslim under their domain, there is very little else that they can point to as proof that theirs is a peaceful, tolerant religion. Where Islam is dominant (as in the Middle East and Pakistan) religious minorities suffer brutal persecution with little resistance. Where Islam is in the minority (as in Thailand, the Philippines and Europe) there is the threat of violence if Muslim demands are not met. Either situation seems to provide a justification for religious terrorism, which is persistent and endemic to Islamic fundamentalism.

The reasons are obvious and begin with the Quran. Few verses of Islam’s most sacred text can be construed to fit the contemporary virtues of religious tolerance and universal brotherhood. Those that do are earlier “Meccan” verses which are obviously abrogated by later ones. The example of Muhammad is that Islam is a religion of peace when Muslims do not have the power and numbers on their side. Once they do, then things change.

Many Muslims are peaceful and do not want to believe what the Quran plainly says. They reach subjectively for textual context across different suras to try and mitigate the harsher passages. Even though the Quran itself claims to be clear and complete, Muslim apologists speak of the “risks” of trying to interpret the verses without their “assistance.” Like many religious people, they want the text to fit their pre-established moral framework.

Far from being mere history or theological construct, the violent verses of the Quran have played a key role in very real massacre and genocide. This includes the brutal slaughter of tens of millions of Hindus for five centuries beginning around 1000 AD with Mahmud of Ghazni’s bloody conquest. Both he and the later Tamerlane (Islam’s Genghis Khan) slaughtered an untold number merely for defending their temples from destruction. Buddhism was very nearly wiped off the Indian subcontinent. Judaism and Christianity met the same fate (albeit more slowly) in areas conquered by Muslim armies, including the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Europe, including today’s Turkey. Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion of a proud Persian people is despised by Muslims and barely survives in modern Iran.

So ingrained is violence in the religion that Islam has never really stopped being at war, either with other religions or with itself.

Muhammad was a military leader, laying siege to towns, massacring the men, raping their women, enslaving their children, and taking the property of others as his own. On several occasions he rejected offers of surrender from the besieged inhabitants and even butchered captives. He actually inspired his followers to battle when they did not feel it was right to fight, promising them slaves and booty if they did and threatening them with Hell if they did not. Muhammad allowed his men to rape traumatized women captured in battle, usually on the very day their husbands and family members were slaughtered.

It is important to emphasize that, for the most part, Muslim armies waged aggressive campaigns, and the religion’s most dramatic military conquests were made by the actual companions of Muhammad in the decades following his death. The early Islamic principle of warfare was that the civilian population of a town was to be destroyed (ie. men executed, women and children taken as slaves) if they defended themselves. Although modern apologists often claim that Muslims are only supposed to attack in self-defense, this is an oxymoron that is flatly contradicted by the accounts of Islamic historians and others that go back to the time of Muhammad.

Consider the example of the Qurayza Jews, who were completely obliterated only five years after Muhammad arrived in Medina. Their leader opted to stay neutral when their town was besieged by a Meccan army that was sent to take revenge for Muhammad’s deadly caravan raids. The tribe killed no one from either side and even surrendered peacefully to Muhammad after the Meccans had been turned back. Yet the prophet of Islam had every male member of the Qurayza beheaded, and every woman and child enslaved, even raping one of the captives himself (what Muslim apologists might refer to as “same day marriage”).

One of Islam’s most revered modern scholars, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, openly sanctions offensive Jihad: “In the Jihad which you are seeking, you look for the enemy and invade him. This type of Jihad takes place only when the Islamic state is invading other [countries] in order to spread the word of Islam and to remove obstacles standing in its way.” Elsewhere, he notes: “Islam has the right to take the initiative…this is God’s religion and it is for the whole world. It has the right to destroy all obstacles in the form of institutions and traditions … it attacks institutions and traditions to release human beings from their poisonous influences, which distort human nature and curtail human freedom. Those who say that Islamic Jihad was merely for the defense of the ‘homeland of Islam’ diminish the greatness of the Islamic way of life.”

The widely respected Dictionary of Islam defines Jihad as “A religious war with those who are unbelievers in the mission of Muhammad. It is an incumbent religious duty, established in the Qur’an and in the Traditions as a divine institution, and enjoined specially for the purpose of advancing Islam and of repelling evil from Muslims…[Quoting from the Hanafi school, Hedaya, 2:140, 141.], “The destruction of the sword is incurred by infidels, although they be not the first aggressors, as appears from various passages in the traditions which are generally received to this effect.”

Dr. Salah al-Sawy, the chief member of the Assembly of Muslim Jurists in America, stated in 2009 that “the Islamic community does not possess the strength to engage in offensive jihad at this time,” tacitly affirming the legitimacy of violence for the cause of Islamic rule – bound only by the capacity for success. (source)

Muhammad’s failure to leave a clear line of succession resulted in perpetual internal war following his death. Those who knew him best first fought to keep remote tribes from leaving Islam and reverting to their preferred religion (the Ridda or ‘Apostasy wars’). Then, within the closer community, early Meccan converts battled later ones. Hostility developed between those immigrants who had traveled with Muhammad to Mecca and the Ansar at Medina who had helped them settle in. Finally there was a violent struggle within Muhammad’s own family between his favorite wife and favorite daughter – a jagged schism that has left Shias and Sunnis at each others’ throats to this day.

The strangest and most untrue thing that can be said about Islam is that it is a Religion of Peace. If every standard by which the West is judged and condemned (slavery, imperialism, intolerance, misogyny, sexual repression, warfare…) were applied equally to Islam, the verdict would be devastating. Islam never gives up what it conquers, be it religion, culture, language or life. Neither does it make apologies or any real effort at moral progress. It is the least open to dialogue and the most self-absorbed. It is convinced of its own perfection, yet brutally shuns self-examination and represses criticism.

This is what makes the Quran’s verses of violence so dangerous. They are given the weight of divine command. While Muslim terrorists take them as literally as anything else in their holy book, and understand that Islam is incomplete without Jihad, moderates offer little to contradict them – outside of opinion. Indeed, what do they have? Speaking of peace and love may win over the ignorant, but when every twelfth verse of Islam’s holiest book either speaks to Allah’s hatred for non-Muslims or calls for their death, forced conversion, or subjugation, it’s little wonder that sympathy for terrorism runs as deeply as it does in the broader community – even if most Muslims personally prefer not to interpret their religion in this way.

Although scholars like Ibn Khaldun, one of Islam’s most respected philosophers, understood that “the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force”, many other Muslims are either unaware or willfully ignorant of the Quran’s near absence of verses that preach universal non-violence. Their understanding of Islam comes from what they are taught by others. In the West, it is typical for believers to think that their religion must be like Christianity – preaching the New Testament virtues of peace, love, and tolerance – because Muslims are taught that Islam is supposed to be superior in every way. They are somewhat surprised and embarrassed to learn that the evidence of the Quran and the bloody history of Islam are very much in contradiction to this.

Others simply accept the violence. In 1991, a Palestinian couple in America was convicted of stabbing their daughter to death for being too Westernized. A family friend came to their defense, excoriating the jury for not understanding the “culture”, claiming that the father was merely following “the religion” and saying that the couple had to “discipline their daughter or lose respect.” (source). In 2011, unrepentant Palestinian terrorists, responsible for the brutal murders of civilians, women and children explicitly in the name of Allah were treated to a luxurious “holy pilgrimage” to Mecca by the Saudi king – without a single Muslim voice raised in protest.

For their part, Western liberals would do well not to sacrifice critical thinking to the god of political correctness, or look for reasons to bring other religion down to the level of Islam merely to avoid the existential truth that this it is both different and dangerous.

There are just too many Muslims who take the Quran literally… and too many others who couldn’t care less about the violence done in the name of Islam.

Economic Systems: The alarmists keep telling us their concern about global warming is all about man’s stewardship of the environment. But we know that’s not true. A United Nations official has now confirmed this.

At a news conference last week in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism.

“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” she said.

Referring to a new international treaty environmentalists hope will be adopted at the Paris climate change conference later this year, she added: “This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.”

The only economic model in the last 150 years that has ever worked at all is capitalism. The evidence is prima facie: From a feudal order that lasted a thousand years, produced zero growth and kept workdays long and lifespans short, the countries that have embraced free-market capitalism have enjoyed a system in which output has increased 70-fold, work days have been halved and lifespans doubled.

Figueres is perhaps the perfect person for the job of transforming “the economic development model” because she’s really never seen it work. “If you look at Ms. Figueres’ Wikipedia page,” notes Cato economist Dan Mitchell: Making the world look at their right hand while they choke developed economies with their left.